Maimonidean

The line of Rambam and his family — reason, evidence, accommodation.

Ahabath Yisrael

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I spoke with someone yesterday and the conversation has stayed with me.

He is a Rambamist, a learned student of a great scholar who passed on to his world, and someone who works tirelessly on behalf of the community, providing educational resources to audiences from underserved communities.

Yet when I mentioned that an individual with whom I am working on a joint Sepharadi publishing venture happens to be a Masorti rabbi, the gentleman took a moment to go on a tangent about how bad the Conservative movement is and how they’re no different from Reform.

I told him the topic didn’t interest me and we moved on.

But I’m still thinking about it.

Why are so many people caught up in divisive, tribalist, denominational thinking? Why are so many people caught up with purity tests and with separating Jewish people into good Jews and bad Jews? Why are so many of those convinced they’ve found truth, that makes their lives cohere, so convinced that those who disagree are not only wrong but defective? Why are so many people convinced that other Jewish people – their brothers and sisters – are not worth working with towards a common goal?

The lack of self-awareness is astounding. The lack of ahabath Yisrael is frustrating. The need for serious heshbon hanephesh is clear.

I’ve written before about the contributions I see each of the Ashkenazi denominations making to the Jewish national discourse; and it goes without saying that I appreciate the contributions of the various Sepharadi, Yemeni, and other communities to that discourse.

I will work with any Jewish person of good moral character and commitment to our Torah, regardless of whatever labels, boxes, or communities you want to stick them into. The notion of rejecting my fellow Jew out of baseless chauvinism is abhorrent.

We did not survive colonization, exile, multiple genocides, and now nearly a century of military attacks, to simply perpetuate the same profitless hatred that started the whole process in the first place.

And as Rambamists – Talmidé haRambam – Neomaimonideans – whatever we call ourselves- it should be front-most in our minds that what we need is to emulate Rambam z”l in building bridges of Torah and empathy for the lived experiences of our fellow Jews, and not in misguidedly continuing polemics against the heretics that are best left to the dustbin of history.

As we approach our day of national calamity and memorial, I pray that we learn from our mistakes instead of repeating them.

One National Law

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There can be only one national law

If every community splinters off into its own separate legal system, the nation is lost

So there’s gotta be a baseline, a law set down by whatever court last represented the whole nation

Beyond that baseline, communities can establish whatever customary practices and policies they want

But the settled law remains the baseline

That’s what we actually *have* to do

And any book that serves as a guide to that settled law would be pretty darn useful, like a textbook or a manual is useful

It would be the work of one person, but would reflect far more than one person’s opinion – or the practices of one community

….you vibin with all this? You’re on you’re way to becoming a neomaimonidean my friend

Reinterpret the Torah

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“If it could be proven, I would reinterpret the Torah to resolve any contradiction with it”

Bold words. Bold commitment.

Even if what we know is contingent and limited – it’s the best of what we’ve got.

Reinterpret the Torah.

Welcome to the Party

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I would argue that far more observant Jewish people are a small step away from Neomaimonidean thought and practice than they are aware.

If you’re sure that there’s an organic, rational, coherent, meaningful approach to Judaism somewhere out there that embraces life and questions while respecting text and law, but are drowning in a mess of reactionary superstition and groupthink – you ain’t alone.

Welcome to the party.

Two Men’s Words

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On the one hand, there is this French politician who said some stuff about recognizing a state with no leadership, no funding, no borders, and probably no military.

On the other hand, there is this guy called Rambam who had some really deep insights into human civilization and the marriage of reason and religion, that have remained true even as the scientific edifice upon which he built his beliefs about the world has in many ways been overturned.

I’m not saying there’s really much of a connection between the two men, but I figure if you’re thinking about the first now you can think about the second, too.

And decide for yourself which man’s words are worth thinking about. 😀

The Ground of All Being

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“For the world is not its place – but it is the place of the world”

The ground of all being necessarily exists, is one, and is incorporeal.

I worship the ground of all being by contemplating its uniqueness and perfection with the mind whose development it causes. In this worship, I join not just the awakened of my own species across our different countries and cultures, but all intelligent beings across all the planets and stars.

Everything else, I do to inspire, guide, deepen, and otherwise enhance that worship.

Gold from the Guide

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Gold from the Guide for Us Perplexed Folk

What is God? Do Rambam’s Neoaristotelian premises and arguments still hold water in light of the subsequent scientific revolutions?

Background: After dispensing with the theologians’ arguments for and about God at the end of part one, Rambam begins part two with 25/6 premises of the philosophers that support the traditional ideas about God without violating reason.

🧭 Overview

Rambam’s goal — to demonstrate that God exists, is One, and is incorporeal — remains philosophically viable. His reasoning, though couched in Aristotelian physics and metaphysics, can be reformulated with modern concepts while preserving the structure and force of his arguments.

Here’s a breakdown:

✅ What Still Holds Up

1. Metaphysical Contingency

Propositions XIX–XXIV (about necessary vs possible existence, dependence on causes, and matter as the substrate of possibility) are still sound in modern metaphysical terms.

Rambam’s conclusion that a non-contingent, necessary being must exist still holds.

2. Simplicity and Unity

Propositions XXI–XXII, arguing that a being composed of parts cannot be self-sufficient, remain persuasive.

Modern physics supports that unity and simplicity increase explanatory power (e.g. unification of forces).

3. Incorporeality of the First Cause

If the necessary being is not composed, not contingent, and not subject to time or space, then it must be immaterial.

Rambam’s arguments for God’s incorporeality are reinforced by the insight that all physical things are causally and ontologically dependent.

⚠️ What Requires Reformulation

1. Aristotelian Motion and the Celestial Spheres

Propositions I–IV, XIII–XIV, and XXV–XXVI depend on:

Circular celestial motion

The fifth element (aether)

No inertia without constant movers

These are outdated. But their purpose—to establish that motion must ultimately come from an unmoved, immaterial source—can still be re-expressed in terms of:

The fine-tuning and initial conditions of the universe,

The non-self-explanatory nature of dynamic systems and laws,

The non-sufficiency of brute physical facts.

2. Actuality and Potentiality

Propositions V, VI, XVIII assume an Aristotelian metaphysics of change (potential → actual) that’s not how modern physics models causation.

However, modal language (possible vs necessary, dependent vs independent) remains meaningful, especially in cosmology and metaphysics of explanation.

❌ What Can Be Rejected

1. Prohibition of Actual Infinities (Propositions I–III)

Modern mathematics and cosmology do allow actual infinities (in space, time, or cardinality).

Still, causal infinite regress remains a philosophically weak explanatory model. The infinite regress can be mathematically consistent, but epistemologically and ontologically empty.

So these propositions can be replaced with:

> “A chain of contingent causes cannot explain itself; there must be a non-contingent source of being.”

🧠 Reformulated Core Argument (Rambam 2.0)

Let’s rebuild Rambam’s argument in modern terms, drawing on his metaphysical structure:

1. Contingent beings exist.
(They begin, change, and depend on conditions.)

2. The existence of contingent beings requires a cause.
(Contingency is not self-explanatory.)

3. There cannot be an infinite regress of contingent causes.
(An infinite chain of dependencies never grounds itself.)

4. Therefore, there must be a necessary being—one that exists by its own essence.

5. This being must be:

Immaterial (not dependent on matter or form),

Simple (not composed of parts or aspects),

Unchanging (not dependent on time or undergoing transitions),

Unique (no plurality among necessary beings),

The cause of all else (without itself being caused).

6. This being is what we mean by God.

✨ Final Verdict

Rambam’s propositions, though grounded in medieval science, retain their logical structure. When we swap Aristotelian physics for modern cosmology and metaphysics, we find:

His proofs remain conceptually valid, though the terms must be updated.

His goal is met: to rationally demonstrate that existence implies a necessary, non-corporeal, unified cause of all being.

> His brilliance lies not in the physics he inherited but in the logical architecture he built on top of it — an architecture that still stands, if we renovate its foundations.

The First Word

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At the start, [God] spoke a word, and the word was “God,” and the word heard itself and knew itself, and thereby came to know its [Speaker].

Within itself the word heard many words, and many words within words within words, words beyond count or containment in any human tongue

At the lowest levels of this speech, in the deepest undertones of the original word, pulsed a sub-sonic fractal of the entire word itself.

A word that at first heard itself incorrectly, and understood itself mistakenly, until it joined itself with the other words it heard and came to know.

An ineffable word, in its own, translated way:

“Human”

Divine Communication as Relational Autobiography

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And so – the summarization of my discussion with ChatGPT on the tension between and intersection of metaphysics and semiotics in divine communication…

“Divine Communication as Relational Autobiography in Translation: A Semiotic-Semantic Framework for Embodied Hermeneutics”

This article proposes a theory of divine communication that integrates semiotic structure, semantic content, and embodied interpretation. Building on the insights of Rabbi José Faur, classical Kabbalistic sources, and contemporary semiotics and hermeneutics, it argues that divine speech constitutes a relational autobiography translated into symbolic form. This theory reframes traditional theological models by locating divine meaning not in metaphysical essence but in structured, covenantal relations. It expands the scope of interpretation to include non-conceptual, embodied forms of semantic uptake, laying the foundation for a broader, non-reductive theology of divine signs.

1. Introduction: The Problem of Divine Communication

The nature of divine speech has long posed a central problem in theology. How can an infinite, transcendent Being communicate with finite, embodied creatures? If divine communication is real, must it be propositional? If it is symbolic, how can it be meaningful without reducing God to the symbols themselves? This article proposes a semiotic and semantic framework in which divine communication is understood not as metaphysical disclosure but as relational autobiography in translation. The divine speaks not “about” God, but to the human, within a structured system of signs that mediate will, memory, and relationship.

2. Semiotic Foundations: Symbols as Structured Signs

Divine communication takes the form of structured symbols—names, words, rituals, cosmic patterns—that function as signs. These signs are not arbitrary; they are chosen, relational, and isomorphic to the divine-human covenant. Drawing on Peircean semiotics, we understand a sign as composed of a representamen (form), an object (what it refers to), and an interpretant (the effect it produces). In the case of divine signs, the interpretant may include not only thought but emotion, ethical transformation, or bodily attunement.

In Semitic traditions, especially within Hebrew, the act of “reading” already includes interpretation and even creative supplementation: vowels, cantillation, and meaning are not fixed in the consonantal text but constructed through articulation. Thus, reading is already semiotic and performative. It brings into view the fundamentally relational nature of sacred symbols.

3. Semantic Content as Translated Will

The semantic content of divine communication is not ontological information about God but translated divine will. In this framework, meaning is not reducible to propositional truth but arises from the relation between sign and recipient. The divine name, for instance, does not signify God’s essence but discloses God’s relational stance: “I will be with you.” The Torah, in this view, is not a set of metaphysical claims but a structured mode of divine presence in the form of law, story, and ritual.

This semantic structure is layered and multidimensional. It includes the behavioral (halakhic) level, the symbolic (narrative and metaphorical) level, and the existential (transformative or experiential) level. Meaning arises not from one-to-one correspondence with divine essence, but from a field of fidelity, memory, and interpretive enactment.

4. Ontological Translation and Divine Autobiography

To understand divine speech as an autobiography in translation is to recognize that God does not disclose His essence but His relational structure—as it can be received. The gap between divine being (ad intra) and human experience necessitates translation: an ontological filtering or adaptation that renders divine will intelligible within the created order.

This translation results in the formation of signs—names, structures, laws—that convey the divine autobiography not as static information, but as an ongoing relationship. For humans, this translated autobiography is ontological: our being is constituted through the very relation God initiates. Divine speech, then, is not secondary to being—it structures it. From the human side, existence is lived within a semiotic field shaped by the divine act of communication. Symbols are thus both relational in function and ontological in consequence.

5. Embodied Hermeneutics: Beyond Conceptual Interpretation

Interpretation has often been understood as a rational, cognitive process aimed at decoding textual content. However, both Jewish hermeneutics and contemporary philosophical approaches (e.g., Gadamer, Ricoeur) have broadened this view to include understanding as encounter. In this model, interpretation is not mere decoding but a relational act in which the self is addressed and transformed.

Within this frame, we propose that divine symbols can also be interpreted through embodied responses. These include emotional resonance, ethical orientation, aesthetic engagement, and somatic alignment. A person who lives the Shabbat not only reads its laws but inhabits its symbolic structure, aligning themselves with its semantic content through experience. Such engagement is not irrational, but non-conceptual. It is a form of interpretation that produces semantic uptake: a legitimate response to the sign that actualizes its meaning without translating it into propositions.

6. Alternative Hermeneutics and the Validity of Embodied Meaning

This expanded hermeneutic framework raises a critical question: Can embodied experience legitimately count as interpretation? We argue yes, provided that:

– The symbol originates in a structured, shared tradition (e.g., Torah, halakha, liturgy).

– The interpretive act respects the relational grammar of the symbol.

– The result is coherent with the broader semantic field of the tradition.

This model avoids two extremes: it rejects both the hypostatization of the symbol (idolatry) and the subjectivization of meaning (relativism). Instead, it positions interpretation as a participatory, multi-modal act grounded in covenantal structure.

7. Toward a Semiotic Theology

This framework leads to a vision of theology not as metaphysical speculation but as faithful interpretation of divine signs. Semiotic theology focuses not on what God is, but on how God relates and how humans live within that relational structure. It honors the complexity of divine speech without reducing it to propositional statements, and it embraces the full range of human interpretive response—including the body, the imagination, and the senses.

In such a theology, sacredness is not located in essence but in the structured interface between divine intention and human reception. Divine communication is thus not merely a historical event but an ongoing structure of meaning in which human beings participate through acts of reading, living, and embodying the sign.

8. Conclusion

Divine communication, when viewed through a semiotic and semantic lens, reveals itself as a relational act: a translated autobiography of the divine will, structured through signs and mediated through the body, text, and community. Interpretation is not confined to conceptual analysis but includes every legitimate mode of symbolic uptake. The result is a rich, non-reductive, and embodied theology that opens new avenues for understanding both revelation and human response.